


Changes and Promises

by lisslynae



Category: Harry Potter - Fandom
Genre: ummmm
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-30
Updated: 2014-11-30
Packaged: 2018-02-27 12:32:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,288
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2693120
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lisslynae/pseuds/lisslynae
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Hermione Granger manages to meet Severus Snape when they are both first years, and still when he is her teacher. The boy makes promises that the man may have forgotten, and it may not change anything anyway.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Changes and Promises

**Author's Note:**

> I have. No clue. What this is. Or where it came from.  
> But, this isn't my first foray into this pairing, but it may be my strangest. My timeline is deliberately foggy, as is the method of her traveling. The timeline is foggy because it is a little backwards in my brain, and because this was a really odd sit-down-and-write sort of thing. The method of traveling is unexplained because, yes, in a world of magic I could explain it but that would take time and no explanation fit.  
> Also, it isn't explicitly stated that they have sex, however, in Britain, 16 is the legal age of consent, so if you choose to read that into it, it's okay! :)

For all the sense it makes, she may as well have been dreaming. It is a week of visits later that she connects the thin, warily funny boy with a teacher. By then it is too late, and her intermittent slips back to a time before she was born are relished, not dreaded.  
~~~~~  
She never thinks of changing the future, even when she was in first year and naive. She cannot say that she likes adult-him, but she respects him a great deal, and for now, she does not want to ruin what she has by changing it. He’s perceptive, though.

“You know me later, don’t you.”

He rarely asks questions, but gives statements that she can clarify, or. sometimes not, as she chooses.

“Yes.” she admits readily. They are still young and too frank, too earnest. “And I respect you, even if I don’t like you.”

“I don’t know you, because Nyssa isn’t your name.”

She shakes her head, and grins when he scowls at the way her hair flings. “No, you don’t, and no, it’s not, and I shan’t tell you if you ask.”

He does not ask, and quizzes her on Charms as he braids her hair back.  
~~~~~~  
She thinks it will be hard to reconcile the man and the boy, and watches him teach with earnestly scrunched up eyes and watches his hands, and the sharp, controlled way he moves back and forth, and they are not so different.

She laughs, though.

“I have to not laugh.” she insists.

He marches and turns again, smirking.

“Nooo!” she wails, muffling her face in her book. “It’s supposed to scare me, not make me giggle. Now I’ll giggle!”

He swoops over to her, and pastes on his best scowl. “Is something funny, Miss?” he grates out before he swishes away smiling.

She abandons her homework to join him and they march and turn, robes swishing and flying to perfection, until they collapse in giggles, their customary homework and studying forgotten.

She chants under her breath the next day in class. “Step, step, and swish.” as he does it and he hears the whisper and scowls at her, and she nearly laughs aloud at the familiarity and incongruity of it. When he asks her sternly if something is funny she scrunches her face into her books and neither laughs nor cries.  
~~~~~  
Somewhere, it changes. She is less of a frequent visitor, not that either of them control it, and they are not quite the secret they were. She stumbles over Draco Malfoy’s extended foot and does not hex him because she had helped his father with his homework the night before, and instead she almost smiles.

They, just the two of them, still work together whenever they can. Now, she barely appears or finds him before he pulls her hair out of her face. In second year, they had made an experimental Polyjuice Potion, and he had spent an uncomfortable hour half-her and half-him because of her loose hair, and it would never happen again, he swore. She can hardly concentrate in class anymore, just watching with an intensity that might unnerve older-him if he would let it, but it does not hurt her grades because she has already heard it from him once, and they have already made the potions at least once in a lab in the basement, probably with stolen ingredients. She spends one evening with him and Lucius Malfoy, arguing over the ingredient portions and trying to keep Lu from chopping his fingers off. The next morning her portions are on the blackboard, and she keeps a very sulky Draco from removing his thumb at the joint.  
~~~~  
The time-turner makes her visits last longer than a few hours, for reasons they cannot figure out, so she spends a night in the Slytherin girls room chattering with the Black sisters. Years later, she looks at the girlish promises made and secrets divulged and cries for what they all lost. She starts taking notes, too. They are no longer just students, but they both know war is on the horizon for both of them. They experiment with potions and charms and spell that even sixth years would not touch.

The first time she scolds him for writing in his textbook, he tells her loftily. “It is accumulated knowledge. You learn from those before you, and teach those after you.”

She laughs at his snobbish attempts at sounding like a teacher, but they both make notes in each other’s margins, and she orders a second-hand book that she hardly makes notes in at all to take to class so no one will notice the spiky handwriting that accompanies hers.

“Accumulated knowledge.” she explains to Ron in the hall. “You learn from those before you, and teach those after you.”

He simply scowls at the incomprehensible scribbles of Percy, and Fred and George before him and goes to dinner, but her teacher stares at her and she sees him and her eyes widen then soften as she hurries away.  
~~~~~  
“HE will guess soon.” she admits as she works on her essay.

He mock-glares at her interruption. “You sort of want me to know though, don’t you?”

She drops her quill and sighs. “I want to stay friends. That won’t happen. You might even be angry because it won’t seem real, you know. If I was a teacher and my student said we were best friends I might be angry.”

He looks at her earnestly. “No, I promise I won’t be. Even though I am obviously stupid to not recognize you, I won’t be stupid enough to be mean when you finally give it away.”

She grins at him. “When I remind you that you said you were stupid you will be though.”

He wrinkles his nose. “Probably.” he admits. “I’ll take house points.” he smirks. “Better not say anything.”

She sticks her tongue out at him and haughtily calls him professor until they begin throwing hexes. A small one hits her, and they duel in earnest, robes flapping and wands waving, and her hair comes out of its careful braid and swirls around her face. In between spells, she finds time to spout insults until he is bent over laughing. He extends his wand in formal dueling surrender.

“You are terrifying when you’re angry.” he chortles. “I thought you would fly without a broom.”

She swats at him with her ribbon, and they finish their essays in calm quiet.  
~~~~  
She still helps Draco in Potions, because he truly is rubbish, and somehow they have a truce, even if it does not extend to Ron or Harry. She teaches him a rhyme about the order of ingredients in a pepper-up, and hushes when the professor walks by, and it is a mark of his Slytherin-ness that he does not question her devious whispers. Ron and Harry mutter when she does homework with him in the corner of the library, so they coordinate their meetings carefully.

“I don’t hate you, even if you are…”

“A mudblood. I know, Dray.” And his father, and his mother, and both of his aunts said the same things not so far in the past, and “I don’t hate you.” echoes through her skull, and comforts her through taunts and scowls.  
~~~~  
Potions is truly their speciality, and they correct and add notes to his textbook until there is no margin left. “Half-blood Prince” is pretentious, she informs him, but they invent spells together, and these are for war. One in particular: the counter-curse is a snippet of a old Muggle song, and they write the curse--sectumsempra--in the margin, but the counter is known only to the two of them. They test it secretly in a haunted bathroom, and careful or no, they will have matching scars along their arms for the rest of their days. 

He grumbles and groans, but lets her add her own name since her handwriting is as prominent as his, and in the back, she writes “Best Mudblood” in her most-perfect handwriting, and they hesitantly kiss once, twice, and stop counting, and they are still too young, but she knows more now, and tells him less, and neither of them care.  
~~~~  
She should have known better than to think everything would be fine. Draco had been hiding something since the start of the year, and he had seemed so afraid, and she could say nothing, and instead had cried on his mother’s shoulder last time she went back and could not tell her. She knows that her robes are snapping as she rounds the corners and bites back a hysterical giggle and pulls her hair back, knotting the green ribbon in as she walks. She can hear the curses and breaks into a jog, and hears “sectumsempra” in Harry’s voice as she rounds the last corner.

Draco is lying on the ground bleeding, and bloody stupid Harry is standing and gawking.

“Dear God, what have you done.” she screeches. Her shoes slosh through the water, and she chants the counter-curse, drawing her wand over Draco’s torso. He blinks awake, the cuts sealing shut. “Two people, maybe only one, in the whole world know that counter-curse.” she hisses. “He could have died!”

She jolts to her feet, well and truly furious. “Did you even think before bleating off a curse you didn’t know?” The damp hem of her robe flaps against her ankles. Harry still stands in the same place, hardly blinking, and she helps Draco sit. He looks whiter than usual.

“Two.” he whispers, eyes fluttering closed, and she notices the tear stains on his cheeks, and he looks like his father when Cissa had been angry with him. She puts her hand on his head and looks back at Harry, fury boiling through her. “This is no war.” echoes across the stones. “‘For enemies’ or can’t you read? Draco is not your enemy!” She can feel her eyes fill with hot, angry tears, and Harry opens his mouth. “No!” she screeches. “Do not defend yourself to me!” She stalks toward him, hair loosening and fluttering around her face. “Go get that book and bring it here right now! I will know if you bring a substitute.”

She helps Draco up. “Here, if you go to Madam Pomfrey it may not scar.” He looks at her curiously. “You can’t go to her when you’ve tested it.” She admits, pushing up her sleeve with a slight smile. “I’m sorry.”

He pulls some of his weight off of her sagging shoulders and grabs her wrist. “It’s not your fault.” He assures her. “You said it wasn’t made for me.”

It is not near so reassuring as he hoped, and her tears threaten to fall as she turns him toward the door. Harry stands, gaping with mixed horror and disgust at Severus Snape, who is watching the whole scene with a completely bland face. She hides a wince, because his black eyes do not meet hers, and he knows. Sudden fear grips her stomach, fear that she may lose all the friends she has left in just a few moments. Except Draco, who is still relying on her to hold his weight. The disgust in Harry’s face snaps something in her, because she knows, and she had seen his father tear up carefully written notes, and his mother turn her nose in the air, and hugged Sev when he cried and apologized into her shoulder.

Her voice bites and scalds as she practically screeches. “Harry, the book, now!” He blinks in disbelief at her, and she practically growls as she steps toward him, the slap of her robes on her ankles marking her steps. Draco holds her back with a hand on her wrist.

“You look like you are going to fly away.” he admits in a low voice. “Very scary when you’re angry. Don’t curse him.” and her wand was up and she did not even know it, and she shoves it back in her sleeve and straightens, haughty and imperial, just like the Black sisters would tell her.

“Now! Harry.” Her voice is deceptively gentle, and Professor Snape moves slightly aside so Harry can slip through the door. The three stand utterly still until his feet echo down the hall. Severus still has barely moved, and she can feel the tears at the edges of her eyes.

“Can you make it down to Madam Pomfrey?” she asks softly, throat tight.

Draco glances up to Professor Snape, and back at her. She shakes her head slightly at his silent question, and he pulls himself up. “I’ll make it.” he replies, and moves stiffly out the door.  
~~~~  
“Promise you won’t be too angry.” she begged.

His lips were on her neck, and she had long ceased to see him as anything but Sev, but what it would be later worried her.

He held her head gently in his hands and bent her forehead to his, and smiled lightly against her lips. 

“It won’t be nice.” she insists. “It’s worse, and everyone knows I’m a mudblood.” her voice is muffled in his shoulder. “You just have to not hate me!” she insists.

“I couldn’t.” he promises against her hair. “I lo…”

She pulls back. “No!” she whispers. “No, you can’t! Not with this name, and not in a time where I can’t belong.”

He does anyway, whispering that he loves her with his hands pulling apart the braid he only just put in.

Cissa, Bella, and Andi congratulate her on her pinked lips that night, but she escapes telling details as Cissa regales them all with stories of Lu.  
~~~~  
Draco’s shuffling steps can no longer be heard, and the only sound is the water lapping against shoes and stones. She stands with her eyes slightly down, and only careful control keeps the tears from escaping. The glance at his face does not reveal much, even to her, and she had worked a long time to memorize each line of his face, and she can feel the tears near the surface. He shifts slightly, toward her, or away from her, she cannot tell, but she pulls her head up resolutely even as her hands tremble.

He does not, never, asks a question. “You are Nyssa.”

She cannot clarify this time, his statement is all encompassing enough, but she nods once, quick and sharp. Her hand is on her scar. In the name of scientific inquiry, they had found that sectumsempra worked wandlessly, and he had apologized endlessly, but he already had a similar one down his arm from their first test. 

“I promised.” he says quietly.

She blinks for a long second, and the tears fall, and one of them moves, or both, because they are kneeling in the water and she is crying into his shoulder and his hand against the back of her head is wound in her hair. 

“If I say we were both stupid will you still take points?” she questions into his shoulder.

His laugh is under-used and trembles. “No, no.” he mutters into her hair.  
~~~~  
“You know.” she confesses.

He kisses her her gently. “I kept my promise, didn’t I.” he says smugly.

She nods, smile trembling on her lips. “We still...it’s not…”

He pull her closer and puts his face in her hair. “It’ll be all right.” he promises. “We can make it that way.”  
~~~~  
It is not all right. Draco and Severus both gone, and Dumbledore dead. He wouldn’t, she chants in her head, and she has a very revealing conversation with Dumbledore’s portrait, and she wishes she could cry on young-him, or older-him, but instead she sobs into her pillow. Only days with both of them knowing, and no understanding of exactly what they were now--professor and student, but what? friends? lovers?--separated, actually, because this was the war that had been coming for so long.

She wanders the woods, hunting horcruxes, and only goes back once, and she eats a meal with all of them, giggling with Andi, Cissa, and Bella, teasing Lu, and dueling with Sev. It’s only a day later, and she sees Malfoy Manor for the first time. Cissa is haggard and does not recognize her, Bella is well and truly insane, and her heart breaks a little for the friends they once were, and Draco and Lu are both there, and Draco lies for them, mouth drawn tight, and Lu stares at her as if he knows he should know. Then she is screaming.

“Bell, Bell, why?” she manages, and no one but her ever called Bellatrix that. She freezes, her knife dripping blood, and something unreadable flickers through her eyes, and she flings the knife away with a howl and kneels there with a hand on her shoulder, not sure if she can move. Lu stares at her in sudden knowledge and his face twists in pain and horror as Cissa cries out. But they are too far into this fight to stop, and she can see etched into Lu’s face what would happen if they tried to stop it. When Dobby whisks them away, and proudly presents them to Bill and Fleur, she hides the bleeding half-M on her arm, and plans stiffly. Harry and Ron are unnerved by the accuracy of her imitation of Bella, and she will never tell them that it was an old game under new stakes.

It is open war, and all around them are screams, and the ground will bleed for centuries, and her hands are red, and she cannot get it to stop, and Harry and Ron both think she is mad, but they had made promises, and she could not break hers, not now, so close. The boys are gone, memories in a flask, and they will see her, because she knows they will explain her as much as Lily, because Dumbledore does not know everything, and Severus did not go into battle for just one Mudblood. Then Bella is there, and she does not know if she should fear or rejoice, but Bella has potions that she does not and before Bella's hands ever spilled blood, she wanted to be healer, and somehow, it may work out. They stay there, silent and still, and Bella gasps, because she knows when Voldemort is dead, and they watch the mark on her arm fade. Before Bella apparates away, she hugs her, tears dripping on her forehead.

“Someday.” Bella promises. “I’ll see you again, Nyssa.”

She manages to side-along a still unconscious Severus, and nearly knocks Fred and George over.

“Came to look for you.” they explain. “Ron said you might still be out here.”

In the castle, there is chaos. Andi’s daughter is dead, and she turns her head away, heavy with the grief of both sides and two generations. She sits by Severus’ bed, and Lu, Cissa and Draco join her, and she explains quietly as best she can. The sun barely brightens the sky before they decide, however, and apparate to Malfoy Manor, and they ignore the wreckage, and floo to a house Lu had bragged about since he was twelve. The Mediterranean is beautiful, and Sev recovers, and Draco can hardly swim, and Lucius tans casually in the burning sun and the lines around Cissa’s eyes slowly vanish.

“You don’t go back again.” Severus tells her gently one evening. “Not to me.”

She rolls over to face him. “I don’t want to.” she states, wriggling closer. She pulls him to her, tucking her face into his shoulder. “I like you just like this.” she whispers against his skin, and smiles as he tightens his grip, and gently pulls her hair so her lips meet his.

**Author's Note:**

> Reviews are much appreciated!


End file.
